The Town of Ladysmith is getting noticed on a national scale for having a busy Green Team, planting vegetable gardens, embracing solar power, implementing a Community Energy Plan and focusing on green building.
The Town of Ladysmith was named one of “Canada’s Greenest Employers” last Friday. The award recognizes the Town’s organization-wide commitment to reducing its environmental footprint.
“Our Town has been recognized for specific environmental programs, such as curbside organics pickup and our sustainability visioning process, but this one is special because it recognizes that throughout the organization, we have a strong and growing culture of sustainability,” Mayor Rob Hutchins said in a press release.
Ladysmith was recognized for its Green Team, which releases a quarterly newsletter and organizes “Lunch and Learn” events for employees; for turning flower beds into vegetable gardens and donating all produce to the Ladysmith Food Bank since 2009; for installing a solar hot water heater in the Town’s office and amending the building bylaw to require that new residential building construction be made “solar hot water ready;” for implementing a Community Energy Plan designed to reduce long-term energy consumption; and for adopting a Civic Green Building Policy, which requires all new municipal buildings that are more than 465 square metres to meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver standard.
The “Canada’s Greenest Employers” Award is part of the Canada’s Top 100 Employers competition conducted by Mediacorp Canada.
“This award celebrates that we are all committed to the community vision of environmental, economic and social sustainability,” said city manager Ruth Malli. “It’s an award that our employees and council share with the community.”